HARVEST POETICS

She looks up at the poker-playing Angels and hisses, "I know what you're trying to do...."!

She looks up before she pops a strawberry in her mouth, chews it for 24 hours, then swallows.

Except, that is ONLY the 7th strawberry and so far ONLY bounty she -- that City Slicker! -- has managed to "harvest" from this season's vegetable and fruit garden....

She knows what Poetry's Dark Angels are telling her....because this week, she had a manuscript accepted for publication by a publisher, then was solicited for what will become a "Selected Prose Poems" book by another publisher, is awaiting the release of her first novel (I'm back in the U.S.A., ye publisher-peep; what's up?), and just completed a new poetry manuscript....

Her gardening skills, the Angels want to insist, lie elsewhere rather than on the patch of dirt she's been lovingly watering on the mountain.

Except the Poet doesn't ever like being told what to do. So she hisses at the Angels: "Thanks for the books. But I got an eggplant in my heart, you cigar-puffing monsters...and I plan to let said eggplant out!"

The Angels sniff. And before they return to their perpetual poker game, they note, "You got another bounty harvested HERE...."

They make their point well....even as the Chatty Chatelaine thinks, Thank you artist-teacher Jenifer Wofford and young artist Hazel Benigno, before she stubbornly goes to the garage for the weedkiller.